A major failing of all mainstream media organisations is the Not Invented Here syndrome – if newspaper X has a scoop, there's a fair chance newspapers Y and Z won't touch it. And if they don't, most of the broadcasters won't even notice. If the pack doesn't join in, any particular issue is likely to wither and die.

For example, there was the cash for comment scandal in 1999 when Media Watch exposed the way shock jock Alan Jones sang the praises of various corporate types in return for a little or a lot of undisclosed moolah. That resulted in an official inquiry and a change in broadcasting regulations.

But Media Watch actually had the Jones cash for comment story five years earlier – just that the first time round, no other media picked it up, so it died. (The difference may have been that the first time with host Richard Ackland, the corporates were telcos, while the second round with David Marr featured banks – and everyone hates banks.)

Similarly, last month Fairfax Media ran a major article by Margaret Swieringa, the former secretary of the Federal Parliamentary Intelligence Committee, who blew out of the water John Howard's claim that Australia didn't join in the Iraq war on a lie. I have subsequently had Swieringa's story confirmed from another source. But the pack let it die – not surprising I suppose when most of the nation's newspapers seem to run an editorial line on political history.

There are many other examples and, at least until yesterday, the latest has been in the area of dodgy claims by the very large, rich and very well lawyered vitamins and supplements industry.

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Unnoticed by most, the most disruptive program on television just now is the ABC's The Checkout. On Thursday nights it delivers genuine consumer investigation, information and entertainment, showing the deft touch of a couple of the Chaser crew.

While the commercial tabloid TV shows chase shonky repairmen down the street, The Checkout has been amusingly tackling much bigger consumer issues – and more powerful opponents. Last night, for example, they did over the milk permeate nonsense, Ticketek and Ticketmaster and our pointless anti-scalping laws, among other things. No, it's not just the usual consumer affairs claptrap. Well, not all of it.

Over several programs, The Checkout has focused on some of the marketing rubbish peddled by drug and vitamin companies. Along the way, the Therapeutic Goods Administration has been treated as the joke that it is in this area of pseudo-science and slick marketing.

But the pack hasn't gone near the exposures. It's actually hard work to take on tough targets – better stick to dodgy repairmen.

Ironically, the family behind the Swisse juggernaut is now doing what The Checkout hasn't – creating some interest in the pack about The Checkout's stories. Avni Sali, father of the Swisse CEO, is suing the ABC and key Checkout personel for alleged defamation. The ABC promises to vigorously defend the allegation.

I don't know what the quality of Sali's legal team might be – but in my opinion, he could have done with much better media management advice.

But this is big business with big advertising spends, pandering to many of the public's most basic fears and hopes. Take a stroll down your supermarket vitamin bazaar and try to find an ailment that doesn't find the promise or cure from magic potent that certainly doesn't have to meet the efficacy or marketing requirements of real medicine.